Erase
by Leafdiaries
Summary: Ensei joins the Satsujinzoku to avenge his family, but finds someone else to fight for. Yaoi. WARNING: Underage, non-con, graphic abuse and violence, lang., DARK. Trying something hard-edged, to show that hope is often born in despair. Ensei x Seiran.
1. Chapter 1

"This barn stinks!" Ensei yelled at the top of his lungs in irritation.

"Shut the fuck up!" a gruff, groggy voice hollered back, followed by the crash of a large rock against the boarded up window of the barn that served as Ensei's prison.

He waited, listening intently for several minutes before he sighed and let his shoulders sag. He had hoped his outburst, which had continued for about a half-hour already, would cause one of the Thieves to come into the barn to "teach him a lesson." He needed to beat the shit out of someone tonight.

He resumed his spot on the haystack and absently drew up a stalk to chew between his teeth. His eyes traveled, again, over to the spot across from him, where a dirty plate still lay on the floor.

_He's been gone a long time tonight_, Ensei calculated. Outside the barn, it sounded like everyone had settled down for the night. _Maybe not everyone_, he closed his eyes, trying not to think about what might be happening to his cellmate right now.

Instead, memories roiled like storm clouds across his mind, recalling his first days among the Satsujinzoku.

_ _ _

Ensei joined the Thieves of the Murderous Blade with the intention of killing every single one of them to avenge his murdered family. Revenge ate at him for almost a decade since his five-year-old, broken body had been left to rot in the woods after witnessing his family's massacre. Now, nearly 14 years old, as strong as any man among the Thieves despite his youth, and certain he would die taking them down, he put his plan into action. Day after day, he studied the murderers' routine, discovering their weaknesses. He stored each piece of information against the day when he would cut them all down to the last filthy dog.

The only hitch in his plan was Little Whirlwind, a fallen angel he'd found among the Thieves, living a hell on Earth.

When he had first come to the Thieves, Ensei had been forced into a fight with a skinny, ragged boy called Shousenpuu, "Little Whirlwind," for the other Thieves' amusement. Ensei had been shocked by the seemingly frail boy's power and ruthlessness. Yet, more than anything, his fighting style announced to anyone with a brain that the filthy, senseless boy had been trained by nobility. Even at his most bloodthirsty, he moved with remarkable grace and fluidity, his silver hair fanning out in the moonlight as he spun in the air and landed a crashing blow with his sword across his opponent's chest. It was all Ensei could do to hold off the little punk, and even at that, he'd nearly lost his eye, getting away with only a fresh scar cutting across the old one under his left eye, a souvenir from his first run in with the Satsujinzoku.

At last, Ensei's brute strength won out, as he grabbed a staff from a cache of weapons where they'd fought, blocked his opponent's vicious blade, and slammed the iron and wood rod across the smaller boy's midsection. The dirty, tangled white hair fell over the boy's face obscuring his expression as his knees quivered for several seconds before he finally, resisting to the last, crumpled to the ground and was carried off.

Though it had been plain that this "Little Whirlwind" had intended to kill Ensei, the taller boy could not bring himself to feel such murderous rage toward the obviously insane kid. Ensei knew that he could easily crush the pathetic child's bones and breath between his hands, so he opted for a strategy he'd discovered that tempered the impact of his strength—he fought him off with a staff. Since that night, Ensei had been dubbed the "Little Staff King," Shokonou, and the two boys were thrown together from then on, fighting side by side during the day and locked up together at night.

Despite his youth, Ensei established early on and often that he was no kid to be victimized by the thugs that enjoyed making sport of weaker beings. Except in very rare instances, Ensei managed to hand out enough severe thrashings and humiliations to his fellow bandits to make them steer clear of him. In a twisted way, he had gained respect among the Thieves because he backed down to no one.

Shousenpuu, however, Ensei quickly observed, suffered the full wrath of the Thieves, who starved and beat him every chance they got. Though Shousenpuu was supposedly Ensei's age, he stood at least a head shorter and had more bones than meat showing on his body. In such a weakened state, he appeared to be an easy target, but when baited by his tormentors, Shousenpuu unleashed a vicious and bloodthirsty rage that took several men to subdue.

During their daily raids, Shousenpuu was released under careful watch to wreak havoc on whichever innocent citizens the Thieves had targeted, making him a useful tool in the gang's quest for blood and treasure. However, the other Thieves considered him mad, subhuman and too dangerous to keep around, so he existed under a constant death threat. Part of the reason Ensei had been jailed during the nights with the feral, silver-haired beast, was in the hope he would kill him before the next morning, so fearsome was the boy's very existence. In fact, the only infallible way to keep Shousenpuu under control oddly came with the utterance of a simple word—Meishou.

Meishou was the Thieves' second-in-command and had taken a particular, revolting interest in the mad boy. Ensei had discovered this horror two nights after his fight with the boy when the ragged child was tossed naked onto the barn floor after receiving his "punishment" from Meishou for losing to Ensei. Two corpulent, grubby men dragged the boy in, his body battered and bloody, and dumped a large bucket of water over the small figure. He curled into a ball, his silver hair masking his face pressed against the filthy floor.

Ensei's stomach retched at the site. _Were there no gods watching over little children?_ he pleaded to the deaf ears of heaven in outrage. How could such a beautiful flower as this be so trampled under foot, and no one stoop to lift him from the dust?

Ensei heard the cold, pitiless snickers of the men who'd brought the kid into the barn. They stood over him, whispering and laughing hideously, until one thug reached down and lifted the boy by the front of his hair and dangled him before him, waist high. The boy's lifeless body hung limply, but Ensei could see half-lidded eyes full of misery roll upward toward his abuser.

"You must be pretty good if Meishou keeps you alive," the thief glared down at the boy. "Let's see what all the fuss is about."

Still, holding the lifeless waif, the filthy brute unfastened the front of his pants and exposed his erection, quivering before the small boy's slackened face.

"Fuck," Ensei grunted and, before he realized what he was doing, he had throttled the attacker against the barn door, his fingers sunk deeply into the other man's throat.

"Die, you fucking pig," Ensei hissed and his fingers broke through the skin on the man's neck. However, just as Ensei moved to twist the man's neck in his grip, eager to hear the familiar crunch of bone as it gave way under his strength, a blow from behind slammed against his skull. In a flash of lights behind his eyes, darkness overcame him.

He had no idea how much time had passed, but he woke to a crushing pain shuddering through his ribs. Quickly, another massive blow came from a boot buried into his ribcage and Ensei lurched and dug his fingers into the ground, trying to catch his breath. His eyes immediately sought out the other boy, who was now obscured from his view by the first thief straddling his chest. All he could make out was a small fist, clenched so tightly at his side that the knuckles glared white through his skin, clamped down against the outrage being done to him.

_That's right, fight, kid,_ Ensei's thoughts raced at the sight, and felt an answering power surge through his veins.

His hand moved like lightning and he clamped his grip around the boot that swung toward his side again. He effortlessly flipped his attacker onto his backside and jumped to his feet. Ensei took two steps toward Shousenpuu, but was grappled around the waist and driven into the opposite wall. It took Ensei all of a second to draw breath back into his lungs, but it was long enough for the other man to pin his hand to the wall with a knife through the center of his palm.

"Now how tough are you?" the bloodied attacker drew back and delivered a crushing punch across Ensei's eye, followed by another from the opposite direction.

Ensei's attacker had a considerable weight advantage over him, but living in the wilderness with Master Nan had given him endurance most full-grown men never achieved. He'd learned how to channel away pain, and his reflexes and reactions mimicked the survival instincts of the animals he'd spent his childhood playing with. All of those abilities came into play as he drove back the burning pain shooting up his arm from the hand impaled against the wall, and he forced himself back to his feet.

As his attacker advanced on him, Ensei leaned backward avoiding a hurtling fist, quickly shifted his weight and drove a crushing uppercut against the other man's ribs. Even as the thief howled loudly, Ensei distinctly heard bones cracking and he smiled with evil satisfaction watching the man land on his knees, clutching his side. He quickly reached for the knife and tugged on it to free his hand, but before he could slide it all the way out of the wall and out of his hand, his attacker regained his feet and swung both hands clutched together across the side of Ensei's face. The boy flew backward and landed on his back, dangling from the wall by his pierced hand. Before he could shake off his dizziness, his attacker landed a knee across his throat and began to pummel his face.

As Ensei's eyes swelled shut and he struggled against the weight crushing his windpipe, he sought a glimpse of the small hand still clenched tight, even after the other man let out a deep grunt and rose from his victim's chest. Tears of regret pooled up under the Ensei's throbbing lids. He'd wanted to help the kid, but he couldn't. In ten years, he was no more capable of protecting anyone than he had been when his family was killed. He struggled to lift his shoulders, to do anything, but his body was no longer responding to his commands. He'd stopped feeling anything. He could only see the small fist still clutching its rage.

The first thief finally dragged the second one off Ensei. "Ha-ha, shit, he fucked you up…one-handed," he cackled at his partner.

"Shut the fuck up," the second thug answered. "You didn't do any better against him. Did you get your rocks off?" he asked, glancing over at the white, fragile skeleton of a human splayed in the dirt. "You fucking owe me," he added enviously.

"Eh, I'm tired. You can have him next time," the first one stated and reached over to wiggle the knife out of the wall and out of Ensei's hand. The bloody hand slid down the wall, leaving a trail of ooze behind, and hit the floor with a thud

"Hey, you could probably get this one now," the first thief nudged Ensei's face with the toe of his boot. "I bet he's never let anyone near him," he added and licked his cracked lips.

"Fuck that," the second thief answered, his eyes widening. "He'd probably bite my cock off. You can have him."

"Tch, I don't want to work that hard," he shrugged casting a lascivious leer at the smaller boy. "I like the ones that don't fight."

Ensei listened to their hideous snickering grow fainter as they left the barn, and he lifted his eyes back to Shousenpuu, who hadn't moved, his hand still balled into a fist. He wondered if he was still alive, or if he had died that way, resisting to the end in the only way he could.

_They had that guy wrong if they thought he wasn't fighting_, Ensei decided and a smile struggled to take its accustomed place on his lips.

As soon as he was able, Ensei crawled across the floor to the sprawled form, and took his first close-up view of the boy's face, covered in filth and blood and his attacker's guilty seed. He sighed. The kid's eyes were wide open staring at the ceiling. Dead as a coffin nail.

"Shit, it's just as well," he mumbled sadly to the corpse. He would like to have known more about a kid like him. Still, the expression on the dead boy's face spoke volumes, even in death. Such hate filled his eyes, such anger clenched his jaw, that it lingered on into the next world.

"Sleep, kid. I'll do the rest," he vowed and reached up his functioning hand and moved to press the dead boy's eyelids closed.

"I'll kill every one of them," a spectral voice hissed from the corpse and Ensei jumped back in shock. "I'll make them bleed. I'll take them to hell with me."

It took a moment of panic and tangled thoughts for Ensei to sort out what was happening.

"Hey! You're alive!" he leaned back over to him, inexplicably happy that the boy lived, even though it meant his suffering would continue. It was impossible to know how to feel, but to Ensei, life meant hope.

Shousenpuu's glaring eyes swiveled toward Ensei's smiling face. "I'll kill every one of them. Every one. I'll slit their throats and wash in their blood."

"All right, all right," Ensei felt a chill race down his spine at the ruthless, insane words coming from such a young boy. He awkwardly stroked the matted silver hair out of the boy's eyes. He could not imagine, would not imagine, what darkness this boy had known. "I'm with you. We'll do it together. We'll erase every one of them. Chougai and Meishou too," he consoled the boy, naming the Thieves main leaders.

At the mention of the second name, the boy's eyes widened and he suddenly looked like a small child frightened of a monster in the dark. His body quaked uncontrollably and his breath came in short gasps.

As quick as he could manage, Ensei scrambled to find a tattered blanket to wrap around the boy's broken body and clutched the small frame against his own battered chest, wrapping his body heat around the shivering boy. Shousenpuu's head hung down, propped against Ensei's chest, and they remained that way through the night. Ensei decided that if they died in the night, at least they wouldn't be alone at the end.

"Aw, isn't that sweet?" Ensei heard a loud, growling voice through the fog of exhaustion.

_Shit_, he grumbled to himself, trying to find some shred of strength inside himself to fight the next round of battles that was surely coming. As consciousness slowly peeled away the night's fitful escape, the numbness in his body gave way to stiffness and then rolling pain. He tried to move and felt a limp weight on his chest, glancing down to see the smaller boy still sleeping, unconscious or dead. He wasn't sure which one to wish for his new comrade.

"What the hell happened to them?" another voice asked and dropped two plates of meager provisions on the floor in front of them. Ensei tried to open his swollen eyes, but the sun burning through the open barn door stung him.

"Don't know," the first one shrugged, "but Meishou's gonna be pissed. They'll be hell to pay for all of us."

"We'd better get them cleaned up and keep them out of sight for a few days," the other added and left.

Not long after, Ensei's eyes opened again to the sight of one of the thieves carrying a basket full of food, clothing and first aid supplies into the barn. He placed the basket down beside Ensei and knelt before him.

"You kids are fucking trouble," he grumbled and reached to remove Shousenpuu from Ensei's grasp. The larger boy's arm tightened protectively.

The thief sighed. "Hey, if you want your little girlfriend to live, you'd better let me tend his wounds."

"Fuck off," Ensei hissed, his voice crackling with dryness. "Get water. I'll take care of him."

The man shuddered involuntarily at the cold, dark look in Ensei's eyes. "Fucking trouble," he mumbled again and rose to his feet and left. He came back in a few moment's with two deep buckets of water and set them next to Ensei. "Why don't you be good kids and just die."

Ensei grinned at the man darkly. "We'll see you in hell," he muttered. He watched the man's face turn white, as he mumbled some expletive and retreated from the barn.

Ensei sighed, relieved that that exchange hadn't turned into a physical confrontation, and that it also produced a miraculous array of desperately needed supplies. He tipped the smaller boy's body back across his arm and his head fell backward, strands of his hair the color of moonbeams spilling down over Ensei's arm.

The kid still breathed, Ensei detected, so he started by washing the filth from the boy's face with a piece of cloth dipped in the cool water. The touch of the soothing cloth against his battered face shocked Shousenpuu into consciousness and he stared up at Ensei's pulverized face.

"What the hell are you?" hoarse words slipped through gritted teeth. Stunning teal-blue eyes as vast as any ocean stared up at him under half-closed lids.

"I'm your guardian angel," Ensei grinned broadly, the smile looking hideously out of place in the gnarled face.

"You suck," the smaller boy stated imperiously, and despite the pain, Ensei laughed out loud. By the gods or without them, Ensei determined at that moment, no man on Earth would beat them.


	2. Chapter 2

An uneasy, uncertain bond had been forged that night between the two boys, tempered by the fire of shared pain and purpose. As Ensei treated Shousenpuu's wounds, he told him his plan to destroy the Satsujinzoku and invited him to join him in exacting mortal retribution on their enemies. From that day forward, Shousenpuu met his cruel abusers with a weak grin on his face, contemplating the day and method of each one's death, which he imagined delivering personally.

The two boys had managed to survive, even to thrive somewhat, despite the ongoing hardship that both suffered. After the incident in the barn, lower level Thieves rarely made any attempts at Shousenpuu. This relief came in part because Ensei shadowed his smaller comrade most of the time, warning off any would-be attackers. It was also partly because the second-in-command, Meishou, had learned of the attack on his pet and had the perpetrators drawn and quartered in front of the rest of the crew as an example to anyone who dared defile his property.

Oddly, during the gruesome punishment, Ensei suddenly chose to step in front of his friend to block his view, hoping to spare him one more ghastly memory among so many others. Yet, when he looked down at the smaller boy's face, he shuddered to see the blood lust etched there as he strained with annoyance to see past the bulky body in his way. For the first time, Ensei wondered if any kind of life would be possible for them once they'd accomplished their deadly mission and left this horror behind. The sooner the deed was done, the better.

With as much caution as possible, Ensei stepped up the number of Thieves he managed to find alone on their raids and leave in a lifeless heap. Picking off a few here and there improved their chances of getting to the leaders. He noticed that Little Whirlwind also had increased his efforts, luring lecherous bastards off into the woods and coming back alone with a soft, satisfied smirk on his face, satiated by blood. The deaths drew no particular attention because Thieves often died during attacks. Most of the time, they'd wander off drunk and fall down a ravine, but no one particularly cared. Least of all, no one suspected the two boys to be capable of such calculated acts of murder and deception.

In fact, the boys had mostly blended into the background so well that the Thieves forgot to lock them up on several nights and then finally ceased altogether. Some quiet nights when Ensei sat alone in the barn, when Shousenpuu had been taken away to Meishou's quarters, he questioned the sanity of their plan. No longer prisoners of the gang, they had every opportunity to escape, to end their torment, especially Shousenpuu, who continued to suffer unspeakable degradation at Meishou's whim.

Ensei made this point to his small friend several times, especially on nights when he returned to the barn bloodied and trembling. Yet, Shousenpuu rejected the idea vehemently every time.

"Listen to me, sniveling locust," the smaller boy grappled Ensei's shirt in his fist, craning his neck to glare into the taller boy's face. "You go if you're too weak to stomach what needs to be done. I'm going to see this to the end. I'm going to wash away every sin in my body with their blood. Do you understand?"

_____________________________________________________________________________

Sitting alone for too long in the barn that night with too much silence suffocating him, and only his own troubled thoughts as company, Ensei mulled over the boy's words as he glared at the barn door. He decided that he had been weak. He shouldn't have listened to a word the mad boy had said. The kid no longer thought like a human, only like some sick killing machine. He should have knocked him senseless and dragged him off, back to Master Nan's, where they could salvage some sort of life from the wreckage of their current existence.

Still, he himself had come here in the first place because he couldn't begin his own life. Until he could lay his family to rest in his heart, he would have no peace and no future, always drowning in the blood of the past. Ensei understood the kid's rage and need for revenge to correct the injustice that had been visited on them both. He knew that the other boy's murderous obsession, in fact, had simply been yet another clenched fist, signifying his will to live against all odds.

Hours dragged by before the barn door opened with a quiet hush and soft footsteps padded across the straw-covered dirt floor. Ensei rolled over from his hay bed to see Shousenpuu kneel on his sleep pallet.

"You ok?" Ensei asked. Never before had he ventured to ask him anything after a session with Meishou, assuming it would be too humiliating and painful for him to drag out before another person. Tonight, though, he'd been gone far longer than normal, and a stronger than usual uneasiness had been eating at Ensei all night.

"Fine," the silver-haired boy answered softly. "It was a good night."

"A good night?" Ensei picked up his head. "Is Meishou dead?"

Whirlwind chuckled softly. "No."

"Well, I'm glad you're ok anyway," Ensei added.

"Cut the bullshit," came the quiet, cold, but typical reply.

"Ok, good night," Ensei grinned, turning his back to his friend, relieved that he was just overreacting. He closed his eyes and adjusted his head on the prickly bed of hay, hoping sleep came quickly.

When he felt a solid warmth pressing against his back, he thought he must be dreaming, but he turned to see a skinny arm, strewn with tangled strands of silver hair, perched behind him.

"What's up?" he muttered.

"Shut up and go to sleep," the other boy answered, his voice cracking.

Ensei blinked. _What the hell?_ He wondered what he should do, or if he should just go to sleep. He opted for sleep, until he felt the boy stir behind him and nestle into his back, his warm breath curling against the back of his neck. Ensei shivered uncontrollably and sat up at the strength of the unfamiliar sensation.

"Are you cold or something?" Ensei stared down at the other boy, who rolled onto his back, one arm bent under his head. In the streams of moonlight, Ensei could just make out the halo of his hair spread out in soft tufts of white against the straw bed.

"Can't I sleep here?" the soft voice slipped through the darkness licking at his ear. Ensei shivered.

"I…I suppose," he answered, trying to come up with some reasonable excuse for getting the hell away from this crazy kid.

The boy's slight frame wriggled on to its side and Ensei barely made out a warm grin curving the corner of the other boy's lips. He definitely heard a wistful sigh that sounded like a summer breeze slipping through the trees.

"Aren't you tired?" the little whirlwind's soft voice drifted up to him.

"Not really," he only half-lied. This odd, indefinable turn of events had certainly dashed any hope he had of sleeping.

"Good," came his friend's response.

Ensei heard a rustle in the dark, caught a glimpse of the lean body moving swiftly and next felt the touch of soft lips pressing against his.

"Nn…get off…" Ensei struggled against the fervent lips and grasping hands. At last he pried himself free, launching the small body backward onto the hay bed. The larger boy scampered backward on his knees to distance himself from the ghostly form under the moon's light, pushing himself up from the hay.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Ensei exclaimed wiping his mouth.

"Erasing him," came the choked reply, and the room fell into a tense silence.


	3. Chapter 3

Ensei swallowed nervously and the sound was audible in the thick quiet that hung between him and the motionless figure shadowed in the dark before him.

"You don't like kissing?" Shousenpuu asked, his voice husky in the darkness.

"Not guys!" the mortified boy curled his body as far away from the little figure kneeling in front of him as he could.

"Have you kissed a girl before? A _human_ girl? Cows and sheep don't count," the soft voice teased.

"Ha-ha, funny…" Ensei answered sarcastically.

"Well…_have_ you kissed a girl, or a boy before?"

"Er…eh…not…exactly," the hulking boy confessed, his cheeks aflame, glad for the darkness.

"Mmm…so I'm your first," Shousenpuu laughed softly.

"Not by my choice!" Ensei answered indignantly.

"Oh, didn't you like it?" he moved closer, his whispers muffled by the sound of the hay swishing with each movement.

"No!" the taller boy growled vehemently.

"Liar!" Shousenpuu raised his voice louder. "I know you watch me when I'm bathing, when I wash my hair…I know what you want."

"You're out of you're…" Ensei backed against the barn wall, feeling a quiver deep in the pit of his stomach. The smaller boy advanced on him quickly and captured his mouth in a hot, probing kiss. Ensei gasped into his friend's mouth as if he'd been stung. He pushed against the urgent press of the slender body writhing against him. He didn't want to hurt him, but this…this was sick. It had to stop.

In one sharp move, he thrust Shousenpuu away so forcefully that the boy hit the ground with a loud thud.

"Shit!" Ensei exclaimed in disgust. He got to his feet in a rush, hurrying to escape the room, when his large hand was caught in a much smaller one.

He drew back to deck the kid and escape his grasp, when the boy muttered, "Don't go…" in as desperate a voice as he had ever heard. The boy knelt at his feet, clutching his hand against his tear-stained face, whimpering.

"I'm sorry…I'm sorry," the lilting voice fractured with agony, no trace of his usual haughty derision.

Every fiber in Ensei's body demanded that he flick this creature away like some pestilence biting into his skin. Yet, he remained, staring in revulsion and pity at the boy at his feet.

"I wanted to…" a choked sob broke the declaration. "I wanted to…please you," he managed to stammer out.

Ensei wasn't sure if he was more repulsed by the idea of a boy touching him that way, or of this boy, this noble blood, groveling at the feet of some nobody mountain orphan like him. Something was horribly, disgustingly wrong with the entire universe.

"Don't cry," Ensei mumbled in an awkward attempt at comfort. "Boys don't cry."

Little Whirlwind kept his face downcast and drew his threadbare sleeve across his eyes, gulping down steadying breaths. Tears continued to spill down his cheeks, no matter how quickly he wiped them away, and they splattered the ground in front of him.

"I'm sorry," the silver-haired boy muttered, struggling to stall his weeping. "I…I'm trying," he spluttered desperately and slapped himself hard in the face to shock himself out of his hysteria. When he drew back to slap himself again, Ensei caught his hand in his iron grip, and dropped to his knees pulling the boy against his chest. He wrapped his thick arms around the slender body that quivered against him.

"All right, all right," he choked out stifled words against the boy's hair. "I'm sorry. It's ok. You can cry if you have to."

Ensei clutched the boy tightly, shoving any awkward thoughts or feelings away, focusing instead on the quivering, writhing vessel of anguish clinging to him, sobbing, choking and coughing against him. Ensei's eyes stung in pity for this wretched child, and it occurred to him that he had never seen Shousenpuu cry before. Not once. No matter what they did to him. He pulled him tighter, ashamed that he had tried to deny him this release out of boyish pride.

When the worst of the smaller boy's tears abated, Ensei turned him in his arms and brushed the moisture from his cheeks with his callused thumb.

"I…I know…what they're doing to you," he stammered awkwardly. "But you don't have to do that with me. If you need something, you just have to ask."

"Erase him," came the hushed, strangled, mortified response. "Please…"

"Huh?"

"I don't want to taste him. I don't want to feel him," the boy turned his face into Ensei's chest, too ashamed to look at his friend.

Ensei swallowed. "Uh…"

"Please…" the boy begged, his voice rising to a squeal and cracking, his fingers clenched in a fist in Ensei's tattered shirt. "Let me taste you…feel you…replace him…erase him."

"Shosen…"

"You have to…You have to!" the wild-eyed boy sat up, glaring into Ensei's eyes. "Get him out of me!" The fragile boy glared at him and punched himself hard in the chest.

"Take it easy!" Ensei caught the boy's shoulders to steady his trembling body.

"You don't know…You don't know…" the smaller boy panted wildly, with a knowing grin on his face. "I didn't want to come back here," the strangled voice ground out the words. "I wanted to stay with him tonight. Stay with _him_…"

Ensei drew back at the confusing words, and the clearly vicious voice that spoke them.

"Don't you get it?" the teal eyes turned up to him in disgust. "I fucked him tonight..._I_ fucked _him_…on my own. I seduced him and fucked him because I wanted him to _save_ me." Tears gushed down the boy's face and he clamped a hand over his mouth.

Shousenpuu tugged out of Ensei's arms and hunched over, letting his tears dot the dirt in between them. He laughed coldly in a dark, sinister chuckle. "I turned him inside out," he whispered his confession in a rush of words that sickened him. "I licked him and sucked him until he begged me…_he_ begged _me_…to let him cum." He tossed his head back exulting with pleasure. "I felt great…the best ever in my life…I made _him_ scream."

Ensei grimaced in revulsion throughout the disgusting confession and the deep, mad laugh that shook the boy's fragile frame. Obviously, the kid had finally cracked completely. Ensei's stomach rolled and lurched at the shattering guilt he felt for leaving his friend in the clutches of that evil bastard, no matter how many times the boy claimed he could handle it.

Rage devoured his senses and he jumped to his feet.

"Am I that disgusting?" the boy laughed darkly and raised pleading eyes to his taller friend. "Of course I am."

"Not you," Ensei answered, somewhat truthfully. This was not this kid's fault. He couldn't help it. He'd been driven to this, and Ensei had let it happen. "But I'm going to kill that bastard. Right now. I don't give a shit about anything else."

"Shokonou!" the boy on his knees called out the Thieves' nickname for Ensei, the Little Staff King. "He's leaving camp this morning. His guards are up and packing. They'd kill you before you even got close."

Ensei hesitated at the barn door before delivering a thundering punch to the boards that split them down the middle. Instantly, the white-haired boy was at his side, stroking cold white fingers over the bloody knuckles.

"Idiot!" he glared up at the taller boy towering over him. "What were you thinking? Is this what thin mountain air does to a developing brain?" he snapped, sounding more like his usual self.

Overcome with remorse, Ensei pulled the boy against him and buried his fingers in the soft tangle of silver hair.

"I'm sorry…I'm so sorry…" Ensei muttered into the silken strands that brushed just under his chin.

"It doesn't matter," Shousenpuu answered. "None of this matters. We just have to keep going. We have to do what it takes to finish this."

Ensei pushed him away. "What the hell are you talking about? As soon as Meishou is gone, we're out of here!"

"We can't go. Not now. Not yet," the smaller boy insisted. "We've already cut them down so far. If we leave now, they'll just rebuild. Maybe with other kids like us. We have to find a way to take out Chougai and…and…"

"You're nuts! I'm taking you out of here," Ensei barked back at him.

"I'll kill you if you try it, and then I'll kill myself," his dark eyes flashed malevolently. "If I don't finish this, I'll kill myself."

"Do you hear yourself?" Ensei cupped his friend's mad face between his hands. "They've driven you insane. You're senseless. You don't know what you're doing."

"So what?" he tossed his hair back, pulling out of Ensei's grip, straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin in a stance that could only be called regal. "I assure you, if you take me from here before this is finished, I will find a way to kill myself. You can't watch over me every minute."

"Why?" Ensei pleaded.

"Because…I have nothing else," he tipped his chin a little higher, his shoulders rocking with every belabored breath and tears shimmering in his eyes, though Shousenpuu wouldn't let another one fall. "I have nothing. If I leave now, then everything taken from me was for nothing."

Ensei saw the proud chin quiver, the lower lip tremble, the shoulders quake under the weight of the arrogant body standing rigid—he was simply magnificent. With nothing at all left inside or outside of him that he could call his own, still he stood up and demanded to walk forward on the path he had chosen.

"He'll call for you again," Ensei grimaced.

The smaller boy closed his eyes and drew a ragged breath. "I know. I can take it."

"Bullshit!" Ensei grabbed the boy's shoulder. "After what happened tonight…"

"I can take it!" he insisted, his voice rising. "If you'll help me."

"How?"

"You have to help me…erase him," he stepped closer, only inches away from Ensei's chest.

"That…" the taller boy sighed.

"He can't have me to himself," Shousenpuu declared. "I have to have something… someone…else…"

"Shousenpuu…I want to help, but…" Ensei shuddered. "That's not…not right."

The thin shoulders shook before the sound of his laughter drifted from his lips. In a moment, he bent over laughing loudly.

"Not right?" he cackled again, trying to steady his breath. "Is anything we're doing right, Shokonou? Don't be ridiculous. That's not part of this world. There is no right or wrong. Only survival."

Ensei hung his head. Everything the kid said was true under these surreal, hellish circumstances. Right and wrong didn't matter. Even if they were ridding the world of deadly scum, they were still committing murder. In pursuit of their own revenge, they had become no better than the Murderous Thieves they sought to destroy. They were beyond the judgments and rules of normal life. Only the gods themselves, who shared blame for their sins, could stand judgment over them.

"When he…touches me," Shousenpuu brushed his fingers along Ensei's arm, "I need to think of another touch…I'll laugh in his face…because he thinks he's the only one. I'll laugh in his face."

Between one astonished breath and the next, Ensei realized that he could give one thing back to this splendid being: his pride, the pride Meishou had decimated under his perverted tortures. If all this boy wanted was to know for certain in his heart and in his body that Meishou didn't own him, hadn't utterly corrupted him beyond redemption, hadn't poisoned him so only sickness gave him pleasure, it was a simple request after all, and one Ensei knew only he could fulfill. If this is what the kid needed to survive, was it so different from tending his wounds or scrounging up food for him? Well, the principle was the same, but…

He clenched his eyes shut, shivering as a small white hand moved across the hard planes of his chest. Was he really even considering this? Truthfully, when Shousenpuu kissed him, the idea of it disgusted him more than the actual feeling. A kiss must feel good no matter who it came from, as long as it was welcomed, Ensei conjectured. He wondered if Shousenpuu ever welcomed a human touch before.

Letting the moment's reluctance wash over and away from him, he swallowed the nervous clot of air in his throat and stepped forward toward his small friend. He hesitantly lifted his large, trembling hand and dropped it heavily, almost in surrender, on the smaller boy's frail shoulder. Teal eyes flickered up to Ensei's deep blue ones, realization softening them. His dark fingers moved to rest against the battered porcelain of that imperial chin, gently, awkwardly, tipping it upward, and he lowered his mouth to soft, yielding lips.


End file.
